Shame is too often the elephant in the room

Over two decades of working alongside social workers, I’ve repeatedly encountered values-driven professionals striving to uphold dignity and safety while operating within systems that increasingly test the limits of what feels humanly possible.

And yet, alongside this commitment, I have also observed something else quietly shaping practice – a force that sits beneath procedure and performance, often unnoticed and unnamed but deeply felt.

Alongside care and professionalism, shame plays a powerful role in shaping how young people, families, and practitioners experience their place within social care systems.

Shame can be understood in several ways, but a helpful frame is offered by psychologist Carl Schneider, who suggests: “We experience shame when we feel we are being placed outside of the context in which we wish to be interpreted.” 

Shame is less about what we do and more about how we are seen – or imagine ourselves to be seen – by others, particularly in contexts shaped by power, exposure, and judgement.

By adopting a lens of shame, we allow familiar patterns of behaviour to take on a different meaning. Is it possible to recognise a young person’s disengagement or defiance as an attempt to avoid being seen as vulnerable? Or a parent’s uncooperativeness as an effort to mask their exhaustion and fear?

Consider the story of Kay*, who was first placed in care following a serious violent incident at home involving a knife, an older sibling and his eight-month-pregnant mother. 

Younger children were present, fear was acute, and the risk was undeniable. Against a backdrop of social care involvement and escalating concerns around child criminal exploitation, Kay was placed in emergency care far from home, a familiar outcome when systems are under pressure and containment becomes the fastest available form of safety.

For three months, Kay’s social worker worked relationally with him, his mother, and a wide multi-agency network. Risk was neither denied nor minimised. Away from home, Kay stabilised: he re-engaged with education, stopped using substances, began medication, and worked to repair his relationship with mum. 

When he asked to return home, mum supported this, despite concerns from the wider family. This was not optimism without caution, but a relational judgement that safety could not be sustained through containment alone.

Then the system fractured. Kay’s social worker was signed off at the point of transition. Continuity was lost precisely when it was most needed. In that gap, coordination fragmented, risk escalated, criminal exploitation returned, and the family once again lived under threat.

After a third arrest in as many months, Kay spent 72 hours in police custody because no alternative placement could be identified. Despite professional agreement that it was unsafe for him to return home, police and an on-duty social worker brought him back to the family doorstep. His mother was told: “This is your son. He’s your responsibility.” 

Mum closed the door on them all.

Something unnoticed, unnamed and untamed had been mobilised: shame. For Kay, now sat in the back of the police car, was reminded that violence is the best defence against rejection and uncertainty. 

A mother was confronted with her failure. And professionals were caught between knowing what is needed and being unable to provide it, forced to act against their values.

Shame is not just an emotion. It drives behaviour. For young people, it can fuel violence as a way of masking humiliation. It drives disengagement as a means of avoiding exposure. 

For families, itfractures trust, turning support into persecution. 

For professionals, shame narrows thinking, accelerates burnout, and pulls practice toward procedure at precisely the moments when presence and relationship are most needed.

How do you wish to be seen when you walk into a family’s home? And how do you imagine you are actually seen – by young people, by parents, by colleagues?

Shame lives in the gap between those two positions. If we do not learn to recognise it, name it, and work with it, we will continue to mistake protection for defiance, distress for risk, and disconnection for failure – in families, in young people, and in ourselves.

Ash McMahon is head of therapeutic services at the Violence Intervention Project, a London charity which is launching The Shame Initiative, a national programme arguing that shame is one of the most overlooked drivers of violence, disengagement and family breakdown